New Hidden Histories collection - Salem Witchcraft Trials

Friday, October 27, 2017

Just in time for Halloween, we have a collection of records from the infamous Salem Witchcraft Trials of the late 17th century.

The Salem Witchcraft Trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693. Despite being generally known as the Salem Witchcraft Trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in various towns across the province: Salem Village (now Danvers), Ipswich, Andover, and Salem Town. The best-known trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town.

If you're familiar with Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, you might be surprised at how much more banal and bizarre some of the cases truly were.